Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a survivor of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Japanese 被爆者 (ひばくしゃ, hibakusha, "bomb affected people")

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Examples

  • Nobody who survived Hiroshima 60 years ago today was closer to the explosion than Mrs Takakura, and she holds a special place in a group of 'hibakusha' - the atomic people -- Rees

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: The burning and the haunting: how for some the nightmare of Hiroshima will never end 2005

  • The hibakusha are the people who witnessed the horror in Japan and managed to survive.

    Steven Crandell: Obama to Hold Mini Nuclear Summit at the UN 2009

  • The fear of radiation was prevalent after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and it stigmatized the survivors, known as hibakusha, or people exposed to radiation.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • She has seen the prejudice suffered by "hibakusha" - nuclear survivors - whose children are sometimes treated as though they bear the contamination in their genes.

    The Guardian World News Jonathan Watts 2011

  • But most bombing survivors, known as hibakusha, have long had a far more complex, and often positive, view of nuclear power - which partly explains why Japan now has reactors along almost every rural swath of its shoreline, 54 in all, accounting for about 30 percent of the national power supply.

    The Seattle Times 2011

  • The fear of radiation was prevalent after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and it stigmatized the survivors, known as hibakusha, or people exposed to radiation.

    BusinessWeek.com -- Top News 2011

  • He told us about the numbers in each bank of hibakusha, but there are probably many more as they do not want to be known as hibakusha, even though they get medical discounts, some people fear them and their radiation levels.

    TravelPod.com TravelStream™ — Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

  • Although Japan has paid for medical treatment for its own victims - known as hibakusha, or "explosion-affected people" - foreign survivors were ignored until November 2007, when the Supreme Court voided a 1974 government declaration that atomic bomb survivors living outside Japan could not receive benefits.

    ROK Drop 2009

  • Ban said on Thursday as he met elderly survivors, known as "hibakusha", at the site of the

    Channel NewsAsia Front Page News 2010

  • One summer, I asked my relatives and found out that I am a third-generation "hibakusha," or atomic bomb survivor.

    Latest News - Yahoo!7 News 2010

Comments

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  • "A term widely used in Japan referring to victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese word translates literally to 'explosion-affected people.'"

    March 30, 2007

  • "These men, women, and children who were exposed to the bomb are the hibakusha. This status entitles one to a monthly allowance from the government as compensation for injuries, since many of them have lingering health problems from which they will never recover."

    Seen on this site: http://www.damninteresting.com/eyewitnesses-to-hiroshima-and-nagasaki

    Which I'm really happy to have found.

    In the Wikipedia article on this term, I saw this quote:

    'There is considerable discrimination in Japan against the hibakusha. It is frequently extended toward their children as well: socially as well as economically. "Not only hibakusha, but their children, are refused employment," says Mr. Kito. "There are many among them who do not want it known that they are hibakusha."'

    —Studs Terkel, The Good War, (1984), 542

    Which I also thought worth sharing here.

    March 6, 2010